Brian: 0:11

All right, well, welcome back to the Bero Beach podcast. This is part two of our interview here with Josh from the Sunshine Pickle.

Josh: 0:19

Co.

Brian: 0:19

Co. Co. Okay. I'm trying to remember how to say it right there.

Josh: 0:22

Sunshick Sunshine Pickle Company Co.

Brian: 0:25

But before we get started, I promise everybody I would crunch a pickle.

Josh: 0:28

Yeah.

Brian: 0:29

And uh so this is the sweet hot pickle that you brought, which smells amazing. There they they crunch well on the mic for sure.

Josh: 0:41

The heat is like a perfect balance with that sweetness. We use a natural cane sugar too, so it really compliments that habanero, that fresh habanero heat in there. It just kind of blends very well.

Brian: 0:51

Well, this is what the whole rest of the episode is going to sound like is crunching. So Shauna, she loves drinking pickle juice, which I just can't wrap my mind around it, but that's pretty good pickle juice. Have you ever used that in cooking?

Josh: 1:04

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Uh not only cooking, but in from a health aspect too. I mean, it literally, I mean, you can feel between the potassium and the sodium and the electrolytes all encapsulated in it. It is literally, you can't buy anything better to make you feel better in terms of you know hydration, in terms of cramping, in terms of hangover remedies. Um, there's so many health benefits, and though the secret is getting out. You know, everyone, people are starting to get hip to it. And um, when I have a long weekend ahead of me, I'm just slugging pickle juice the whole time. And it's amazing. Like the next day, if I'm working like a long Saturday and I'll get into Sunday and I might have a couple cocktails, you know, over the course of that Saturday, I'll I'll get out on a Sunday and I'll be wow, I I feel I feel good. The health benefits I feel are, you know, it's it's something that the world needs to know about. And you know, we're it's another we're working on other products to get that to get that out there too. That's cool.

Shawna: 2:07

Yeah, did you know that it's also a good remedy for like acid reflux?

Josh: 2:11

It is surprisingly, yeah. Wow. Like heartburn and acid reflux and um hiccups. Uh hiccups is a good pickup remedy.

Brian: 2:17

It's really more than just pickles in that container. Yeah, it's seriously like it's a miracle. It's a miracle of it.

Josh: 2:24

It really is. It is delicious, and I would say even more so the dill brines than the sweet brines, because you know, you have you do have the sugar. Um, it albeit a natural sugar, it's still um, I think the the the dill brine works a little bit better for those health benefits.

Brian: 2:39

Okay, so okay, I want to talk about the behind the scenes of running a pickle business. First, knowing that you were from Cleveland, correct, and now you're in Florida, how's it different working with pickles in Florida versus in Cleveland?

Josh: 2:53

Well, the in terms of the business, we had very we had a lot of different options to to sell our products at in terms of grocery stores. And we could walk into these places, and like I said, we would get a yes. You know, people just loved us, and we were the best-selling items and you know, local items in a lot of these in the stores. So when I came down to Florida, I was like, I was so optimistic about and confident in my skills. Oh, I'm gonna go down and we're gonna we're gonna recreate the same success. Is if you have publics down here, and then there's everybody else. And if you don't get if you're not into publics, you're scrapping, scratching, and clawing. Um, it's something you know we're going after, it's kind of our white whale at this point. But because of that, we haven't had that, you know, the ascension from a retail standpoint. You know, we we people love us, and it's like I said, it's either publics or you have a very limited amount of multi-unit operations from a retail standpoint. That is what's been kind of the most different and the biggest thing from getting us to the level that we we thought we could get to a little bit quicker. Yeah, now three years in, because we don't have as many options and we're we're getting there. It's just we you know, we don't have the money to throw at it like a lot of these other big brands do. And a lot of these places, a lot of these retailers, you know, outside not publics as much, but a lot of these other big brand um retailers is just pay to play, you know.

Shawna: 4:12

You know, if I've learned anything from Shark Tank, it's that so many times like a slow, steady growth and like working is is better. Yeah, because then people get in these situations all sorts of different ways where it's just too much for them to handle all at once. So it's it's a good thing, you know.

Josh: 4:29

Yeah, exactly. It's a you know, and the the road, it's not about the destination. There's a cliche, it's not it's the journey. It's the journey. And I always try to, you know, I'm all about I live, I want to live for I'm living in the moment, yeah, and I'm enjoying the ride and I'm enjoying it today as hard as it is sometimes. And on any given day, you have you have rejection, you have elation, you have the highest highs, you have the lowest lows, you you have tears, you have jumping up and down, you have all these different emotions that you're that you go through on a daily basis. And that's just part of the journey. And you know, yeah, it's um it may not be easy, but I feel like once we get there, you know, wherever there may be, um, I think it's gonna be that much sweeter. Yeah, you know, yep. And I think there always is is always moving.

Shawna: 5:12

So, you know, you brought us some of these other products that look amazing. Tell me a little bit about how you got into that.

Josh: 5:17

We wanted to establish other revenue streams because we knew that you know the retail game is is the is a long play. So um, in addition, we're like, okay, we're gonna we're gonna create different products that you can go on our website to purchase beef jerky and the dry rubs and the popcorns and you know the different stuff.

Brian: 5:34

I think it's very smart too, the other avenues that you've jumped into because I mean beef jerky is huge in this area. I mean, people like their beef jerky, the rubs, especially with grilling now, like I can't wait to try that rub out. Yeah, uh, it looks like the rub is great.

Josh: 5:48

That's just kind of something that was was something we did not plan on doing. My wife and I, we were making barbecue one night and we always listen to music, and you know, the kids like to dance around and jump around. And that particular night happened to be an 80s hip hop night, um, old school 80s hip hop, the song, the two live crew song, Me So Horny came on. Um, and there's the line where they say me love you long time. Um, so as that's playing, I'm making this dry rub and I'm I'm dancing around, I'm kind of being an idiot. And I walk up to my wife, I'm like, hey baby, me rub you long time. And uh um, and I'm like, wait a minute, that sounds like a great name for for for a product. So right then and there, I was like, we're making a dry rub and we're gonna call it rub me long time. So I called them and then I was like, here, here's the recipe. And a few months later, we have I have a palette of dry rub now sitting at my warehouse. We just launched another um a custom, basically, it's a custom pickle label that you can create online called My Pickle. Say um you were you needed a wedding gift or you needed instead of sending a Christmas card, you can go onto our the website and you can upload a picture of yourselves and your family, and you can create your whole custom pickle label that we print ourselves. Um, and then we'll send you like a different four-pack of different flavors with your own label on it. And we used it. That was our Christmas card last year. It was a picture of our family that we sent out.

Brian: 7:12

So that might be a Christmas gift idea this year.

Shawna: 7:15

Are they smaller than this or this size?

Josh: 7:17

It's this it's a 16-ounce glass jar, so it's shelf stable. Um, so it's a great gift for like baby showers. So people took are taking pictures of their ultrasounds um and putting it on the label and sending that out. So anything you want to do, if you it's a great like gag gift for a birthday present. If someone loves pickles, you put their picture on it, you know, and say, you know, Brian's Brian's pickles and stuff like that.

Brian: 7:39

I can see a total baby reveal of like, okay, there's this box coming like, is it a boy or a girl? And they lift it up and there's a pickle joke. Yeah, exactly.

Josh: 7:46

Yeah, yeah. We're it's uh it's a lot of fun. We're we we just launched it um this year, and um it's one of we're trying to, you know, find the right platform to kind of advertise it to because it's it's a little, it's not necessarily like a pickle for pickle people, it's more of a gift, you know. So, but if you want to do something unique and it's great for like corporate, like corporate gifts too, yeah. Instead of giving away something, you put your company logo on there. You you got all these different flavors. What's your favorite? I like it hot. I think the spicy dill. Yeah, and uh, you know, as many different flavors as we do like have out and come up with. I'm very much a pickle purist. I like the sweet hot if it's spicy, I like it pretty much.

Shawna: 8:24

I agree, because when they start making like pickle flavored beer, it doesn't taste like loses, yeah. Yeah, it's not even it doesn't hit the spot.

Brian: 8:32

Yeah, so okay, what is the website? Because I'm I mean, I've heard about popcorn rings, I definitely want to make sure we check that out because I already I'm already putting an order together in my head. So it's www.sunshinepickleco.com. Couple more questions. Uh you you mentioned your family about you guys coming up with the the rub idea and you know your guys' your guys' fun nights with the music and stuff. What kind of does your kids play a role in the business?

Josh: 8:55

They do, yeah, absolutely. Um, my son, he's he I he's definitely the buddy entrepreneur. He actually just came up with a um he came up with his own pickle brand called Bigfoot Pickle Peppers, um, that we're working on. He he he's had an affinity with Bigfoot since he was a little kid, and they both love coming to the markets with me. And you know, the cute factor is definitely a selling thing. And then my daughter, she's she's quite the little hustler. When I need help with with the actual selling, she helps me with the pickles, but she'll bring candy or she's been bringing stickers, she'll come to some of these events and she'll be she'll come, they'll she'll make 150, 200 bucks at some of these things. If they don't take over, you know, this business, we want them to, you know, do something for themselves. And you know, nobody wants to be working for the man.

Brian: 10:22

Yeah, that's so good. That's so good. How do you guys talking about family? How do you guys balance like the the family life and business life?

Josh: 10:29

So being a homeschool family, it's um one thing that we do is we always try to every week is one day is you know family day. And you know, over this over summer break, it's always what beach are we going to today in Florida? So, you know, as much as I I'm usually working a lot of the weekends right now, which I'm trying to kind of balance out from there. But you know, if you know, going out to dinner on a Thursday and you know, spending that time together, and um, I understand how finite this time is that I have with these young kids. I'm trying to relevant, I'm trying to relish in the time. You might already have it. But it's something very, you know, I I try to um if we even if we're not in position to take a to get out of town for a couple days, I try to find a way to do it and spend that time and that family time because that's one thing you're not getting back. And it's one thing I always try to tell my wife, she's like, I you know, I don't think we can do this. I'm like, is is it might not have been advantageous at the time to do, but you know, it's you know, one thing I say is money comes and goes. Um, but one thing you can't get back is that time you have with these kids. And it's what the you know, before, you know, I I look at my daughter who's gonna be 11 tomorrow, and I look and I'm like, that represents 10 years of my life gone by, you know, and it's just you know, yeah, but it's you know, but you know, we've done so much in those 10 years, and it's just something and I feel it's always very important to try to slow that time down and do it by you know living for the the day today and going to do something, you know, as a family. Yeah, yeah.

Shawna: 12:02

Well, good job with that because I feel like if when people are driven and entrepreneurial, it's a hard thing to learn, but it's so important. And I I feel like a lot of times people wait till way later in their kids' life to notice it. So good job with that because it's very important to me. Yeah, like you said, you'll never regret that. No, you know, I look back and I mean there were times that you could literally say we were poor. I mean, we were not doing well financially, but we were all together and we had our son with us and we did a lot of things together and it was worth it. Yeah, you know.

Brian: 12:34

Some actually some of the we looked back and said some of the times that we had the least amount of money was the bust. Yeah.

Josh: 12:39

So the simplicity of it, you know, almost it's like, wow, like we were broke, but it was just easier, you know. Some aspects, yeah, exactly.

Brian: 12:47

Yeah, your priorities we had to sacrifice, but your priorities, and you're like, wow, we really have been happy this year, like really, really happy. So, well, I I love hearing that that's I mean, our son's 21, so we're like, man, it it goes fast. Yeah. So I love hearing you guys doing this together and how you're balancing that. So all right, one more question before we wrap up this episode, and then we're gonna talk about Vero Beach. What makes your pickles better than others? I have a very simple answer.

Josh: 13:12

I mean, there's obviously I just say love. The love we put into it is what makes us different. I feel the quality and the consistency and the freshness just all come through in our passion.

Brian: 13:26

If anybody has not had it, make sure you go to the website, order it, because they are delicious. Now, can we find out a different on your website, different areas that you'll be to, like if you are at a farmer's market or anything like that?

Josh: 13:37

Yeah, we do that more on our social media saying where we're gonna be. Awesome.

Brian: 13:41

And what's your social media handle? Is it what what platform do you find?

Josh: 13:44

We're on Facebook and Instagram. Um, it's it's Instagram is at Sunshine Pickleco and Facebook is just the Sunshine Pickle Co.

Brian: 13:53

Nice, awesome, awesome. All right, well, I can't wait to get into episode three. We're gonna talk about Vero Beach and uh more about pickles, pickles and viero beach. I never thought I would find myself saying that statement, but really that's where we're going. It sounds good.

Shawna: 14:05

I told us coming on.

Brian: 14:06

All right, well, with that, thanks for listening, neighbor.